


A Wet Weekend

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 10:39:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15386970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Jim and Blair have gone camping...





	A Wet Weekend

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the SenTh prompt 'collapse'

A Wet Weekend

by Bluewolf

The weekend was a washout - literally.

Surprised to find the parking lot empty Jim and Blair had reached their chosen campsite (one of several individual sites among the trees) some quarter of a mile from it just after 8pm, the tent was pitched by half past, and they had decided to fish for an hour or so before having a quick meal and settling down for the night.

Luck was with them for the fishing - both had caught a nice fish in the first quarter hour - but by then the sky was clouding over surprisingly quickly. They decided that one fish each was probably enough for the evening, so they cleaned the fish and returned to their camp, where they put their catch into the cool box. By the time they had boiled water for coffee, it had begun to rain, and they retreated to the tent with the coffee and dug out the sandwiches they had brought for supper.

When they settled into their sleeping bags they could hear the rain sounding increasingly loud as it hit the flysheet.

Next morning it was still raining.

"Oh, well," Blair muttered, "this lets us catch up on our sleep!"

Around midday, however, they - or, rather, Jim - decided that the rain wasn't going to stop at any point in the immediate future, so they decided the weekend was washed out by this unforecast severe deterioration in the weather and that the best thing they could do would be to head home. They could spend Sunday in bed at home as easily as in the tent.

So they packed up quickly, checked that they had left nothing behind, loaded everything into the truck - glad they'd chosen a site that wasn't too far from the truck - then headed off down the track towards the main road.

The track resembled a stream. Water dripped from the hillside above it and then took the path of least resistance, running down it.

"I don't think I've ever seen things here this wet," Jim muttered.

"If the forecast is bad we don't usually come camping," Blair pointed out. "The weathermen got things seriously wrong for this weekend. Hell, even you didn't sense this coming - if you had, would you have agreed to coming out? You'd have muttered about a change in the weather - and I've got enough faith in your weather sense not to argue."

Jim glanced over at him. "You're right," he said as he looked back at the road. "This blew up very suddenly. I didn't feel any change in air pressure until just seconds before the rain started. So I really don't blame the forecasters for not catching it."

They drove on.

About two miles from the road they reached a gully cut by a stream that was always fast-flowing - and on this day, after several hours of heavy rain, was pouring downhill to the river below, and close to overflowing its banks. It was crossed by a wooden bridge.

As the truck's rear wheels rolled onto it, Jim gasped and slammed his foot down on the accelerator. The truck leaped forward and off the bridge; Jim took his foot off the accelerator and stopped.

"What the - " Blair gasped.

Jim jumped out of the truck and looked back. Then he climbed back in and sat, a look on his face that Blair found impossible to interpret. He was visibly shaking.

"What?" Blair asked.

When Jim just sat there, saying nothing, Blair got out of the truck himself, despite the rain, and looked back.

The bridge had collapsed.

Blair climbed back into the truck, realizing that he, too, was shaking. Jim must have felt the bridge - or, more probably, the ground its supports stood on - beginning to collapse under the weight of the truck; if he hadn't accelerated in automatic response, in a desperate - successful - attempt to get off the bridge, they would have fallen with it. The truck might have stayed on it; but the weight and force of water meant it was more likely to have fallen off the edge (or even taken the bridge with it) and tumbled down the hillside to the river below.

Would they have survived? Unlikely.

Jim had saved their lives - again.

Blair reached over and grasped Jim's arm. "You maybe didn't sense the rain coming," he said, "but you sensed the bridge beginning to collapse. And - from our point of view, that was more important.

"Now - not many people use this track, but we'll need to let Highway Patrol know about the bridge. So let's move on to where we can get a phone signal... phone it in, and then get home."

Jim drew a deep, shuddering breath, nodded, and drove on, a good bit slower than his usual speed; Blair could only guess that Jim had been as badly shaken by their near miss as Blair himself was.

They turned onto the main road. Some five miles down it was a small filling station and shop. Jim pulled in there, and they went in.

"Hello, gentlemen," the man at the till said. "Not many folk on the road today." Although phrased as a statement, there was the touch of a question in his voice.

"Can I use your phone?" Jim asked. "We can't get a signal on our cell phone, and I need to call Highway Patrol."

"Highway... Has there been an accident?"

"You know the road up to the campsite? There's a bridge a couple of miles up it?"

"Yes."

"The bridge is down."

"You didn't pick a very good day to go up there," he said as he indicated the phone.

As Jim picked it up, Blair said, "Actually, we've just come down from the site. We were just getting off the bridge when we felt it go. Luckily it collapsed at the uphill end. Equally luckily, there wasn't anyone else up there, so nobody's trapped."

Jim finished his talk with Highway Patrol, and hung up. "Thanks."

The shop owner looked at him. "Your friend said... "

Jim nodded. "We were very lucky."

They bought some candy, then went back to the truck and headed off homeward.


End file.
